Twenty years of Accounting History, 1996–2015: Evidence of the changing faces of accounting history research

Abstract

Early research into accounting history publishing patterns indicates researchers were predominately male, working for Anglophone universities and were researching private sector accounting in Anglophone countries. However, recent research suggests this may be changing. Extending and expanding the earlier research of Williams and Wines (2006), the purpose of this paper is to examine publication patterns in the New Series of Accounting History from 1996 to 2015. There has been growth in the journal’s thematic coverage and its global and gender representation. It also reports that while temporal and geographical coverage has expanded, there has been little change in the degree of international collaboration. Although much has been achieved over the past 20 years of Accounting History, there are a number of emerging topics and developing fields of historical enquiry that could be addressed in future volumes, together with research that interfaces accounting with the wider business, political, social and legal historical space.